Half Dead
by Skyhiatrist
Summary: After Helga's Grandmother dies, Helga and Death have a little heart to heart. But of course, being Helga, there was always going to be a little trouble. A Hallowe'en Story. XCompleteX
1. First Date

**A/N: Yay, a Hallowe'en Story! It's only a short one, three chapters tops I'd say, and contains some rather dark humour. - Sky.**

**Half Dead**

**Chapter 1 - First Date**

Hillwood Cemetery had a very unique design indeed. It appeared, to an outsider at least, that it had only been put in when the designers went home to congratulate themselves on a city well built, only to choke into their evening supper when they remebered they'd left out a place to bury the dead. It wasn't as though it were a rush job, by any means, it just seemed to have been slotted in wherever they could find the space. Production was of course hampered by the fact that Hillwood, as the name suggested, was very steep in places and had once been full of trees. However, Hillwood Cemetery very clearly existed and with it it brought a gentle stream trickling through it, a misty bridge that crossed the aforementioned stream, and a large iron fence that was forced to curve dangerously inward where it met City Hall. Nevertheless, it served it's purpose well and was home to legions of Hillwood's former residents, all of whom were taking a well deserved dirt nap.

Helga G. Pataki was also very much like the cemetery, or so she thought. She too had not been thrown hurriedly together, choosing instead to be a maze of very complex workings, even at the tender age of eleven, but she, like the cemetery, felt like people had two main issues with her. Firstly, they put her wherever they could find the room and secondly, they felt a lot better on the whole if they could avoid her altogether. Therefore she was not surprised that she was morbidly drawn to the place, and on this particular day in question it was even less surprising as her grandmother had been buried there not two weeks before. What was odd, however, was the fact that she had chosen to spend this night sitting as far away from her grandmother's grave as was humanly possible without leaving the cemetery.

Helga did not believe in talking to the dead. She didn't think that they could hear her innermost thoughts and feelings on the astral plane some referred to as Heaven, or perhaps maybe she just hoped they couldn't. Either way, she chose not to whisper fond and forced goodbyes to a grandmother she barely knew, but instead thought simply of her, and the life she had had, which spawned Miriam, a quilt on Olga's bed and third place in a poetry competition when she had been Helga's age. When she had found the ribbon underneath her grandmother's bed, Helga had been taken aback but at the same time a lot of things clicked into place. At last she could dispel her childish fears of adoption, as clearly her creative blood had come from somewhere.

She shifted uncomfortably and shivered a little. The stone tomb she had chosen to sit upon in it's moselueum was having a profound effect on her rear. That was to say that like it's occupant, the tomb was slowly deadening her butt as well. Helga pretended not to notice and rested her chin in her hands as she swun her legs back and forth over the edge. She hoped that Miriam was feeling a little better, or had at least she had returned to the smoothies. It was surprising what a sobering effect death can have on the drunk, and as far as Helga knew it worked the other way as well. She wondered what she would do if someone she truly loved died, but stopped before it depressed her.

Depression was something Helga didn't know much about. She knew about sadness and loss and grief, but depression was a foreign emotion to her. She supposed that all of the other negative emotions _could_ turn to depression, but she was certain that depression was feeling sorry for yourself, whereas loss was feeling sorry for what you had, well, lost. Depression was the point where you stopped thinking about things you wanted and started concentrating on the things you didn't have, and Helga had never gotten that far. It had occured to her, (that is to say it never stopped plaguing her), that she wanted Arnold, but she had never contemplated the fact that she didn't _actually_ have him. As far as she could tell she was still on the road to getting her man, and depression would be the point where she would give up, go home and plug in her Mom's blender.

A spider made it's merry way across the wall of the moselum, towards the web it called home. Helga sighed, checked her watch and supposed she should follow suit. She jumped down from the tomb, thanking the owner for his kind hospitality, scooped up a bouqet of daffodils and left through the heavy wooden door. Daffodils were her grandmother's favourite, according to Miriam, and Helga was not about to leave without paying a quick visit to her. Just to show she still cared. In her weaker moments she wanted to speak to her grandmother, as it was easier to talk to someone who was guaranteed never to interrupt or tell another soul, but then she'd feel embarassed as soon as the words left her mouth and she would leave, promising to come back when the weather permitted.

For a quiet moment she regarded her grandmother's grave. It was only a simple stone, with her name, the year she was born, the year she died, and a generic quote at the bottom. '_Mother, sister, friend_.' Helga wondered if it was so understated because her grandmother had wished it that way or because her father had paid for it. Helga thought it was just the one she wanted. She could see no sense in forking out a truckload of money for a gigantic stone angel, just so people will walk past and pay it no mind. Admittedly, you could always stand beside it, ringing a bell and wearing a sandwich board that said 'You'll never guess who's buried here!', but to most people a body is a body unless it's the one they buried. Helga knealt down and placed the daffodils by the headstone as respectfully as her pink dress would allow, and got to her feet. "See ya later Grandma," she whispered.

"I thought you didn't talk to the dead?"

Helga's insides froze, unfroze, tried to escape out of her mouth which was already full of her heart and froze again. The voice was so deep it reverberated around Helga in a most inhuman way, but at the same time it carried with it an icy, sharp edge that could have separated body from soul. Helga, who's eyes were as wide with fear as they could be, did not turn around to view the speaker and instead made little gurgly noises in the back of her throat.

"Don't worry," said the voice. "I won't hurt you."

Helga did not feel at all inclined to believe whoever it was, but at the same time she sensed a sort of stupidity at standing stock still while a person of indeterminate origin got a good view of the space between your shoulder blades. Slowly, and with all of the fluid movement of a sack of spanners, Helga turned around to face her unrequested company. She would have gasped, but all of her senses and reactions seemed to have taken an unscheduled trip to Aruba.

Before her stood the most terrifying sight she had ever seen. Swarthed in a black cloak that billowed around his skeletal body despite the still air, stood a figure just shy of seven feet. In his hand he held a long, crooked scythe even taller than he was, which looked sharp enough to slice silk scarves as they fluttered to the ground. Helga couldn't help but notice that where there should have been skin and sinew and flesh there was only bone, and where there should have been eyes there were only sockets. Skulls, as a rule, don't have facial expressions, but Helga was certain that this figure was giving her a jaunty smile. Much to her chargrin, as anything else, Helga felt that although she was filled with a morbid sense of dread, she was also serenly calm.

"You're Death," she said simply.

"Well spotted," Death replied.

Helga wasn't stupid, but she was the queen of denial. Like most eleven year olds, she knew that Death came to everyone sooner or later, but in her childish wisdom she had been hoping more for the 'later'. What little life she had had flashed before her eyes, and she felt a sort of anger towards Death at his ill-timing. Her grandmother had only just died, for crying out loud. But then, she supposed, Death wasn't really one for tact or he wouldn't take some people at all. She scowled at the cloaked figure, and folded her arms tightly across her chest.

"Hollywood really got you down to a cliche, didn't they?" she said spitefully. Death let out a small moan and plucked at his robe with his free hand.

"No," he said in a sullen voice. "I used to be a sweet looking little girl, but people seem to respond so much better to this now." He propped his scythe against a gravestone and sat down on the grass. Helga had an overwhelming impulse to run like the clappers, but felt that she couldn't move. She bit her lip, sent Fate a strongly worded mental letter, and looked down at Death, who was now picking daisies.

"Look, can we get this over with," she said tiredly. "I know you don't have all day..." Death looked up at her, puzzled, then looked down at himself.

"Oh!" he exclaimed suddenly, getting to his feet. "I'm not here for you," he said, rummaging around inside his pocket. He withdrew a very long scroll and began running his finger down the list, muttering the small girl's name over and over under his breath. "Aha! Here we are! Helga Geraldine-"

"No!" Helga siad quickly, clamping her hands over her ears. "Don't tell me, I don't want to know!"

"Ah," said Death, rolling the scroll back up and replacing it back in his pocket. "Sorry."

"No problem," said Helga unsteadily, sitting down before she fell down. _At least_, said a cheerful voice in the back of her mind, _we're not going to die! _

_No, _said another voice, a much more bullying one that would have curled it's hands into fists if it had them. _But it appears we are crazy._

_Well, yes, there is that, _the first voice agreed. Helga told them both to shut up and looked at Death.

"So what are you here for?" she finally asked. Death ran a bony index finger across his bony chin and frowned. Helga wondered how he did it, but he was most definitely frowning.

"I just thought you and I should have a little chat," he said finally, in a way which made Helga's spine curl up in fright and go and have a whimper in the corner.

"Oh you did, did you?" she asked in a high-pitched, jittery voice. She could feel her left eye twitching.

"Look, I'm sorry if I startled you," Death said gently.

"Oh well, that makes it all better then, doesn't it?" Helga said sarcastically. Death, it seemed, was unaware of the concept of sarcasm and carried on regardless.

"Yes," he said slowly, sitting down next to her. Helga tried to inch away from him but was rooted to the spot. He seemed to eminate a sort of coldness that was, at the same time, rather warm. When Helga finally got to the other side and was in full charge of her faculties, she was going to kick his head in for messing with her senses like this. "You see, I like you. You're so different to all the other mortals."

"No I'm not," Helga insisted. If she possessed one quality that Death could single her out for and actually like, she wanted it disposed of as soon as possible.

"You are, my girl, you are," Death said firmly, patting her on the knee. Helga's whole leg momentarily died.

"Ok, I am, I am, I'm sorry!" Helga said, staring down at her leg in shock, as it was turning a rather post-mortem blue.

"Whoops," said Death, taking away his skeletal digits. "I forgot you weren't dead."

"Oh, thank a bunch, bucko," Helga said in an offended voice.

"I didn't mean anything by it," Death replied quickly, and Helga found herself having to remember that she was sitting, in the middle of a graveyard, conversing with the Grim Reaper. She must have slipped in the moseleum and hit her head on the tomb. "You are different though, you're much more in tune with the borders of realities."

"I am?" Helga asked, secretly thinking that if she ran across anyone who said they'd been speaking to Death she would accuse them of witchcraft and burn them.

"Of course you are," Death said simply. "Why else would you even be able to see me?"

"Can't everyone then?" Helga asked.

"Oh Lord no. My job would be very difficult indeed if people kept stopping me every few feet, half of them trying to kill me and the other half trying to get my autograph. No, only the ones who understand that there's more to life than what we see, without getting all conspiracy theorist about it."

"And I do that, do I?" Helga asked, looking at her hands.

"In a manner of speaking," Death said offhandedly. Helga decided suddenly that she didn't want to know.

"You know what, I'll take your word for it," she said.

"Probably for the best," Death replied with a nod.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Helga asked, thinking she should be getting home even though her watch had stopped and a bird appeared to have come to a screeching halt mid-flight.

"Life," Death said. Helga let out a short laugh. Not only was that a rather strange topic for Death to be discussing, or so she thought, but Helga was so young that there was a lot about life she didn't know yet, and what insight Death hoped to glean from her would be very unhelpful indeed.

"I see," she said quietly.

"I suppose, however, that you'd much rather talk about death," the hooded figure said solemnly. It was only then that Helga noticed the hundred or so questions that were buzzing about her brain, which up until now had been kept in check by the feeling of complete and utter panic that seemed to be running the show.

"Hmmm," she said by way of agreement.

"Go on then," he said idly.

"Really?" Helga asked.

"Really," Death replied.

"Is there a Heaven?" Helga asked without hesitation. Death offered her a very pointed shrug.

"I don't know," he admitted. "It's all bright lights and purple mists, but once the souls disappear into it it's anyone's guess because I can't go any further." Helga suddenly felt a very foreign emotion engulf her; sympathy.

"So you... where do you exist? In Hell?" Death rolled his eyeless sockets at her.

"Just because I take the souls of the living it doesn't mean I'm a bad person. I live on Earth, like you and Olga and the Queen of England." Death rubbed his bony elbow and looked up to the night sky.

"What about when you're not... working?" Helga asked.

"Yeah, 'cause every now and then people just give up popping their clogs to give me a day off," Death said dryly. Helga was not about to be out-charmed.

"Yeah, so to what do I owe the pleasure of filling your skiving off time?" she asked cuttingly.

"I can _stop_ time, you know," Death said pointedly, and Helga remebered her watch.

"Neat trick," she conceded. "So who were you... before?"

"Before what?" Death asked.

"Before you took up the scythe and went around killing people," Helga said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I've never been anything else," Death said simply, and once again the sympathy marched about in front of her eyes.

"So, do you have to do this forever? Who's making you?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure. I'm just a very scary looking messenger here to tell you that your time on this Earth has passed. That's it. Nothing more, and no less."

"Sounds like a kind of boring existence if you ask me," Helga said dully.

"It's not too bad," Death said, stretching his arms out in front of him. "Good dental plan." He grinned extra wide, to show off an impeccable set of pearly whites. "Plus, you know, chats with frightened eleven year old girls in the middle of cemeteries are always good for a laugh."

"I'm not frightened," Helga said firmly.

"Not anymore," Death agreed.

"So that list of yours," Helga said, indicating at Death's pocket. "Does that say when absolutely everyone is going to die?"

"Yep. The second you're born your name goes on the list," Death said with a sigh. "Kind of sad really, when you think about it. All you're building to is this." He gestured around the graveyard, at the hundreds of dead bodies that lie quite still six feet under the earth. Helga shrugged lightly.

"We all gotta go sometime," she said.

"Aren't you even slightly miffed?" Death asked. "When I tell most people that, they top themselves the next day."

"That's pretty mean," Helga said coldly.

"I hate it when the living miss deadlines, excuse the pun," Death said in a business-like tone. "But it really doesn't bother you?"

"In the grand scheme of things life can last for a pretty long while. I'll worry about being dead when I am thanks," Helga said lightly. Death sighed, and Helga felt the both hot-and-cold breath on her skin again.

"Will you knock that off?" she demanded.

"Sorry, I know it's a little cold," Death said.

"_And_ warm, It's weird and confusing." Death threw her a sideways glance.

"Did you just say, _and_ warm?"

"Yeah, I did, and if you don't mind it's messing with my head so go breathe somewhere else. Wait, why are you even breathing at all?" Death dismissed this question at once, and looked at her strangely.

"Only the dead say it's warm," he said slowly. Helga's insides ran around her body looking for an emergency escape. "And only the living say it's cold..."

"So I'm what? Half dead?" Helga said, the twitch returning to her eye with a look of triumph.

"Or half alive," Death said with a chuckle.

"Can we not joke about my mortality please?" Helga said sharply. Death sighed and shook his head.

"We can worry about it later," Death said half-heartedly, but Helga was forced to interject. When it came to the matter of whether or not she was still breathing, Helga would prefer it dealt with right away.

"Excuse me?" she said in a scandalised voice.

"It's not a big deal."

"Not a big deal?" she repeated with a shriek. "Maybe not for you bones, but I would rather be all dead or all alive and _not_ somewhere in the middle!" Death glared at her and reached out with his fingertip, which Helga couldn't help but feel looked like the barrel of a gun, and pressed it to her forehead. It felt as though someone had packed her head with ice. Death left it there for a few moments before taking it away.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Pissed off!" she replied quickly.

"But not... dead?"

"No, but you're gonna be feeling something rather like it if you don't explain yourself in two seconds flat."

"I tried to kill you," Death said simply.

"You did what?" Helga cried, feeling that this was not the way beautiful friendships got started.

"It didn't work, did it?" Death said defensively. "It's not your time, therefore I can only conclude you're as alive as you're ever going to be. You must just have a closer connection to the afterlife than most people."

"Just what I always wanted," Helga said glumly.

"You should try talking to the dead sometimes," Death said shortly. "They might actually be able to hear _you_." Helga hugged her knees to her chest and did a little assesment of her mental state. All of her senses were pretty adament about the fact that she was awake, so this wasn't a dream, but her Common Sense refused to back down from the point that talking to Death just wasn't something one normally did. Her Fear had relaxed a little but refused to come out from behind the sofa, and her sense of Self-Importance had just plugged itself with a bike pump and was getting very inflated. Meanwhile, Logic and Desire were having a fist fight over what Helga wanted to believe more, that she was crazy or that she was special, while Belief itself was sitting on the couch with it's feet up.

"I don't want to talk to the dead," she said quickly. "I bet it's all war stories and how things weren't like this in their day."

"I never said they'd answer you," Death said, but added, "They might," as an afterthought. Helga closed her eyes and tried to think of all the people she had known who had passed away. There was her grandmother of course, and Helga felt that after her goodbyes there really was nothing left to say. She could always call on her old parrot and apologise for getting it eaten by a monitor lizard, but it would only repeat her apology back to her anyway.

"What if I have nothing to say?" she asked Death.

"There's always something left unsaid," Death said. Helga supposed that she could talk to random dead people in the cemetery, delivering final messages and all that, but Helga didn't really want a life that revolved around death. But she could answer a lot of unanswered questions, one of which had just leapt up from the back of her head and was now dancing in front of her, begging to be asked.

"Did you..." she began, choosing her words carefully. "Did you take Arnold's parents?" Death looked at her thoughtfully, and for once Helga could read no other expression. He sighed, flexed his skeletal fingers and then, with all the airs and grace of a three year old turned to her and stuck out an invivible tongue.

"Not telling you," he said childishly. Helga growled at him.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Because," said Death in a maddening way.

"That's it," said Helga, getting to her feet. "I'm getting out of this paranoid delusion and going home."

"Alright, fine," Death said hurriedly. "I can't tell you because there are certain rules and regulations that I must follow. Also, I'm sure that it's none of your business." Helga sighed and looked at Death despairingly.

"Fine," Helga muttered.

"Do you ever think about what you want out of life Helga?"

"Constantly," Helga replied.

"Well don't," Death said shortly. "It only leads to disappointment. Think about what you already have, and what you wouldn't mind having but if you don't get it it's not a big deal."

"Wow, that's a wise and poetic little speech."

"I'm serious, life can be good or bad, I've ended all types of lives and those who were happiest were the ones who died without everything they never wanted. Or those who were on the job, of course..."

"On the what?"

"Never mind."

"So you're saying you came here to tell me to carry on the way I am?"

"Uh... yes."

"What about Arnold?"

"What about him?"

"I want him. Are you saying I shouldn't?"

Death didn't answer. Helga wondered if it was possibly to wedgie Death.

"Can I just go home now?"

"Not yet," Death said.

"You didn't come here just to chat, did you?" Helga said, feeling cheated.

"No," Death said. "I came to help you."

"Help me?" Helga repeated.

"I'm going to help you with problems of your heart. Do you remember earlier, when you were wondering how you'd feel if someone you truly loved died? I'm going to help you find out." Helga's eyes widened in terror. "I'm going to kill Arnold." In the rush to her eyes, the tears blocked up the ducts so well that none of them could actually escape. Her voice too decided it wasn't worth putting in an appearance, and all sense of reality went out of the window. She wanted to say 'why?', but all that emerged was a soundless gaping.

"I'm kidding!" Death said quickly. Helga aimed a very hard kick at his skull and caught him on the chin. He rubbed it, looking sore and sour. "You said you wanted to know!"

"No I didn't!" Helga protested. "I wondered, but then I stopped wondering because I _didn't_ want to know! That was so low, so very very low!"

"Sorry," said Death gruffly. "I suppose my sense of humour is a little warped."

"A little?" said Helga, who was still breathing heavily. A mighty wind struck itself up and blew through Hillwood Cemetery, lashing the trees and rippling the grass. "So why did you come here?" Helga asked, bowing her head against the weather. Death shrugged at her, got to his feet and picked up his scythe.

"I was lonely," he said. "And seeing as you seem to come here most nights now instead of playing baseball, I thought you might be lonely too."

"You know what?" Helga said in a vicious tone. "Some people have imaginary friends, and some have guardian angels. Why do I get Death?" Death thought about this for a second.

"Don't you like me?" he asked finally. Helga rolled her eyes.

"It's not that," Helga said quickly. "It's just, you know, you're the Grim Reaper. People only usually see you once in a life time, and even then it's right at the very end." Death swung his scythe at the ground and lopped the head off of a few flowers.

"I could use an assisstant," he said, eyeing Helga, who took a step back.

"No way," she said. "I have other things I'd rather be doing. Like having a root canal, for instance." Death nodded and looked to the ground. Once again the sympathy made Helga speak up. "Sorry, but you know, you can... er... come visit sometimes. If you want, and if it turns out that I'm not actaully stark raving mad." Death looked up and smiled.

"Thanks Helga," he said. Helga heard a twig snap behind her, and when she looked up again Death was gone. She frowned.

"Great," she said to herself. "I just made friends with Death."

Helga walked slowly through the graveyard towards the gates of the Cemetery, feeling as though she had been beaten up. Her head seemed to be very angry with her, and the rest of her body wasn't too pleased with her either. As she neared the gates she spotted a small a rather decepit looking gravestone, all by itself on a tiny hillock. She walked over to it and read the inscription.

_Henry Jonathan Priestly_

_Borned: 1902_

_Died: 1967_

_Father, brother, friend._

"My grandmother's maiden name was Priestly," Helga said softly.

"Small world," said an old man's voice in the back of her head.

-:-

The next morning Helga felt like a good long walk was just the thing to clear her head. However, the more she walked the more she reaslied that she would be in Alaska before her head even started to return to normal. Helga had come to the conclusion that last night had been a slight lapse out of sanity and into Crazyville, in which a comical, moive-styled Death had come to her and talked junk for half an hour. Clearly it was nothing more than the product of a derranged mind, and all she needed was a little stability.

She walked the familiar path down Vine Street and stopped outside of the Sunset Arms, thinking. The door opened, and though Helga saw it it didn't really register until the frame was filled with the shape of Arnold.

"Helga?" he said, returning to her her senses. She suddenly realised how glad she was to see him, alive and all. She dashed up the stairs and pulled him into a tight embrace.

"You're alive!" she cried happily.

"Daily," Arnold replied uncertainly. Helga let him out of her arms and looked embarrassed. "It's sort of strange you're here," Arnold said after a moment's pause. "This came for you this morning. Here. At my house." He handed her a small envelope with her name printed on it in over-the-top showy script. She slit it open and pulled out a small, white card. It had three words on it, printed in blood red ink.

_"See you soon."_

Helga swallowed, a feeling of cold dread filling her insides. She took a deep breath and allowed her eyes to flick skyward. "Very funny," she muttered dryly.

"I thought you'd like it," said a voice that could have frozen time itself.


	2. Second Sight

**Chapter 2 - Second Sight**

It was at this point, after a night of being elsewhere, that Helga remembered herself. Arnold, who had been himself for a while now and was feeling perfectly fine, regarded her quietly. If embarrassment came in dollars, Helga would have been a very rich girl indeed. It seemed as though she had to a) explain why she had thrown her arms around him in such a shameless gesture of lack of control and b) find a way to say it that wouldn't make her seem like a lovesick puppy.

If Helga was honest with herself, and she often was as she spent so much time lying to everyone else, she wasn't at all sure why she was so secretive about her love for Arnold. There was, in the back of her mind, the fact that most children her age were under the impression that love was icky-pants, but Helga knew that both she and Arnold were way too mature for that. There was also the fact that since she found out she had feelings for the boy, she had done nothing but terrorise him, and to get down on one knee and profess her love for him could seem a tad hypocritical. She chewed her bottom lip ruthlessly while Arnold stood waiting for an explanation with maddening patience.

'_I could tell him I'm ill," _she thought desperately, before metaphorically shaking her head. _"No, he would never fall for that... Maybe I could tell him I thought he was someone else... yes, that has possibilities..."_

"_Don't be foolish girl, just tell him how you feel."_

Helga's eyes snapped open in a gesture of out and out shock. Helga had never been interrupted during her own thought stream before because, as a rule, there was usually no one else in her head but her. To find that someone else was in there, probably messing the place up and leaving dirty clothes everywhere, well, it was quite a surprise indeed. It was also rather rude.

"_Excuse me," _Helga continued inside her head. _"This is an inner monologue, meaning that the only persons who should hear it are me, myself and I. Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in my head?"_

"_Don't you remember? Last night? At the graveyard? It's me, Henry!" _The old wheezy voice let out a little chuckle, the kind that can only be perfected once you're dead.

"_That's all well and good, but that doesn't explain why you are squatting in my skull and cluttering up my thought process," _Helga replied, in the angriest tone she could think in.

"_I'm sorry, I'll leave you to it then," _said Henry in a voice that indicated he had just settled himself down in an imaginary armchair.

"_I'd prefer if you didn't have the opportunity to interrupt at all!" _she thought-screamed.

"_Oh," _said the old man. _"I'll be going then, shall I?"_

"_Would you?" _Helga replied. There was a moment's silence, which to Helga felt very much like the putting on of carpet slippers, and then Helga felt as though someone had stuck a tap in her brain and ran out half the essence. She did a quick check, just to make sure she really was alone, and then remembered what deep trouble she was in.

"So..." Arnold said gently, in a vain attempt to prod Helga into a response. She scowled at him, and then, curling her hands into vicious little fists, she remembered her social standing.

"So," she said firmly, before punching him sharply in the ribs and running away.

-

Four years after that fateful night, Helga saw hide nor hair of the Grim Reaper, (who, in fact, did not _have_ hide nor hair), and she thought she was damn well lucky to be rid of him. As the years went by and Helga sped into that nasty little period called adolescence, she sensibly put the whole thing down to a very small but very real psychotic episode. Someone dies and your mind makes up stories for you just to make it that little bit easier, which seems fair. She probably would have done the same for it.

Lack of appearances from Death, however, did not mean that Helga's life was short on excitement or event. Far from it. When she was twelve, her parents came to the absolute conclusion that they were sick of looking at each other. One messy divorce later and Miriam was back in the southern states, burning to a crisp and drinking smoothies with a Ranch Boy named Randy. Her father, meanwhile, found that his Beeper Emporium was more than an adequate substitute for a wife and consequently he got so buried in his work that Helga was lucky to see him one month out of three. Olga, of course, blamed herself.

Arnold too grew and with him Helga's love grew. She would have marvelled at the fact that she stalked him around like, well, a stalker, but to her true love meant skulking in alleyways and stealing bits of hair. Arnold, in his own little bubble, continued not to notice. There had, however, been one minor relief for Helga when it came to loving Arnold. She had finally found the nerve to spill her guts to Phoebe. Phoebe had replied that she had known all along. Helga had muttered something under her breath. Life had gone on.

And so it was that the two teenage girls, one much more taller and lankier and western than the other, sat side by side in the lunchroom of HS118, observing a football headed boy contemplating his tapioca. Helga's hands were twisted into tangled snakes underneath the table as Phoebe had finally convinced her that this was The Day. And it wasn't going to be like all the other Days, where Helga strode confidently up to Arnold, before punching him on the arm and running away, no. This was The Day, The Day when she would finally confess everything to her beloved.

Secretly both girls knew it was going to be just another Day.

"I don't wanna," Helga said childishly.

"Of course you do," Phoebe replied motheringly.

Helga folded her arms and glared at the petite girl who had the audacity to call herself a friend. True friends didn't force you to march up to your crush and confess everything. No, a true friend told you to keep it all down, always writing little poems in shadowy corners and turning your love to hate for the sake of any witnesses, until one day you exploded in a shower of unrestrained passion that left many dead and a few injured. Helga gulped and, after a push from Phoebe, walked up to her spiky haired love.

"Hey Helga," he said, the quiver in his voice announcing to everyone in earshot that he was a late bloomer.

"Hello... Arnold," Helga replied, scrabbling to find a vocabulary that didn't contain the word 'dolt'.

"How's it going?" Arnold asked, finally deciding that tapioca wasn't for him. Out of the corner of her eye, Helga saw Phoebe giving her a jaunty thumb's up.

"It's going..." Good? Swell? Most excellente, por favor? Who was she kidding? It was going like a derailed train. She curled her fist up, and saw Phoebe bury her head in her hands.

"It was going great until I ran into you!" she yelled, thumping him on his barely-there bicep and skittering back to her table. Her face went the colour bricks. Arnold flexed his arm a little, wondering where the feeling had gone.

"Nice to see you too Helga," he muttered.

Helga pulled at her bunches. "I'm pathetic!" she roared, and Phoebe put a consoling hand on her back.

"No you're not," she said soothingly, wishing she could add 'just deranged'.

"I might as well just face facts," she said sadly, furrowing her brow. "I'm just going to lust after Arnold for the rest of my life, without ever having the chance of relief." She sniffed dejectedly.

"If it makes you feel any better," said a heart-freezing voice behind her. "The rest of your life is only going to be about forty seconds."

-

Being fairly young and inexperienced, Helga had never died before. But, being Helga, she wasn't going to take it lying down. All around her students were frozen with forks halfway into their mouths, and only she and the darkly cloaked figure of Death were animate.

"I'm too young to die!" she protested. Death shook his head at her.

"You're never to young to die," he said, in a voice that implied he had said it thousands of times before. Helga narrowed her eyes and balled her fists.

"Look mister," she said thinly. "If you try to wrench me from my body at any point in the next sixty or so years, I am going to kick you squarely where the sun doesn't shine." Death allowed himself a small chuckle.

"You can't threaten me with violence, you big silly," he said, grinning like a lunatic.

"Watch me," Helga replied bitterly. And then something in the back of her mind spoke up. It was ill timed and random and definitely as far from the point as she could get, but it was there. "Hang on, how comes you never came to see me?" Death gripped his scythe tightly and looked sheepish.

"I've been busy," he replied. Helga snorted.

"I thought you could stop time?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow. Death threw his scythe down in guilt.

"Ok, I got told off," he muttered. Helga couldn't help it. She was an inch away from death and yet she still burst out laughing.

"Told off?" she repeated incredulously.

"The Powers That Be thought it was rather unprofessional for me to be coming down here and making friends with mortals. They thought it would make them look bad in front of all the other deities," he said, producing a lipless pout from nowhere.

"Don't they care that you're lonely?" she said with the tiniest trace of sympathy. This being was here to kill her, and all small talk was simply for the purpose of stalling and nothing more.

"Probably not," Death said stiffly, as though he thought that the Higher Powers were the ones that should be getting a good telling off themselves. "Anyway," he said, shaking himself a little and picking up his scythe again. "Helga Geraldine Pataki... Your Time Has Come." She tittered nervously.

"Come on now," she said in a shaking voice. "We're old friends. There's no need to be capitalising things."

"But I always do it like this," Death said pointedly. "It just makes it seem more proper." Helga frowned.

"Oh yeah? So where's my hour glass dribbling down the last few minutes of my life?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

"Er..." Death managed, rolling up the sleeve of his robe. Acting as though he were more interested in the leaves outside of the cafeteria window, he flashed Helga something on his bony wrist before quickly hiding it away again. Helga let out muffled bursts of laughter between her pursed lips.

"A digital wristwatch?" she burst out, doubling up in her hysteria. Death sighed and tapped his foot.

"Look, they take up less space than hour glasses and they're much more accurate, alright? What is it with you mortals and everything looking the part?" Helga clamped her hand over her mouth and tried to get herself under control.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry," she said, wondering where her death had left off and this debacle had begun. It certainly seemed to her as though she might not die after all.

"Can we just get this over with?" Death boomed. _Perhaps the old dirt nap isn't entirely off the cards though_, thought Helga.

"Um, do we have to?" she chanced. Death pulled back his hand, which had been travelling on it's cold and unyielding way to her forehead.

"Of course we bloody well do," he replied irritably.

"Oh," Helga replied sadly, looking at Arnold, who had frozen in the middle of massaging his arm.

"He'll be fine," Death said, trying to regain his composure.

"So, how do I die?" Helga asked.

"Um, heart failure or something," Death said, raising transparent eyebrows. Helga nodded.

"Funny," she said slowly. "It never failed me before."

"Yes, well, there's a first time for everything," Death said. "May I?" Helga shrugged, deciding that it was time to give up the good fight.

"Go nuts," she said, sighing. Death looked at her strangely. "It means go right ahead," she explained. Death nodded in an enlightened fashion, and extended his hand once more.

"Ok, deep breath in," he said. Helga closed her eyes and braced herself, feeling Death's cold yet warm finger rest in between her eyebrows. For a moment, nothing happened, and then Helga felt it. The sensation as though she were trying to hold on to a spider's web underwater. Slowly but surely her fingers ripped through the delicate material of life until she was forced to float to the surface, no longer in control. A sound like a giant breathing out could be heard, and then light and colour flooded into the cafeteria, leaving Helga's classmates to swarm over her lifeless body.

Some six feet above the scene, Helga and Death floated side by side. "It's really rather sad," Death commented wistfully.

"Yeah," Helga agreed. "It really really is." A chill hit Helga's, well, hit her where the back of her neck had once been. Death turned suddenly in the air, staring at Helga with all the shock there seemed to be in the world crammed into his eyeless sockets. Helga looked down at her now pearly white translucent representation, and wondered what was worrying him so. Death gulped. Loudly.

"Excuse me miss," he said evenly. "But what the Hell are you doing here?"

-

**A/N: I know it's past Hallowe'en now but I, like Douglas Adams, feel the only good thing about deadlines is the whooshing sound that they make as they go by. -Sky.**


	3. Premature

**Chapter Three - Premature**

"What do you mean 'what am I doing here'? You just killed me!" Despite the fact that Death was a little confused as to what had just transpired, he still felt the need to defend himself.

"I didn't kill you, your dodgy ticker did. I just reaped your soul," he said matter-of-factly. Helga tried to tap her foot in impatience, but as she was floating six feet off of the ground this proved rather difficult to do. "That still doesn't explain why you are still here though," he mused thoughtfully.

"Doesn't it always happen this way then?" Helga asked as she saw Phoebe burst into tears. She felt as though her heart was going to shatter... again, apparently.

"Not usually," Death said slowly, rolling up the sleeve of his robe. "I can't help but notice that for a soul you're rather... ghostly."

"I'm a ghost!" Helga shrieked, thinking that was the last thing on earth she wanted to be.

"Don't be stupid," Death said fussily. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"You still don't think so?" Helga said stubbornly, waving a ghostly hand over her ghostly form. Death put a hand to his forehead.

"Well..." he said slowly, clearly not handling this upset of his whole belief system with good graces. He checked the watch on his arm again. Helga watched him patiently, desperate to do something but not at all sure what that something was. She was completely at sea now, not knowing if she was or wasn't a ghost, but pretty certain that she was dead. Death gulped.

"Oh dear," he said finally. Helga glared at him, waiting for him to explain, but he didn't.

"Oh dear what?" she finally asked.

"Oh dear," Death said again.

By this point Helga was getting increasingly frustrated. In life she had rarely stood for such maddening behaviour, but now that she was dead she didn't really see what else she had left to lose.

"Either explain yourself or I am going to wrench your arm off and cram it right up your-" Helga trailed off, not entirely sure where one crammed things up a skeleton. Death gave her a pathetic smile, the kind that an air stewardess would have given to her passengers before informing them that they had just lost all four engines. A morbid dread filled Helga, and she wondered what she had left to be afraid of. Death scratched his head and avoided Helga's gaze.

"I knew that power naps were not for me..." he said quietly, muttering to himself. "Always put the watch on just before you reap the souls, just before!" he scolded himself quietly, knocking his bony knuckles against his temples.

"Er, what?" Helga cut in, feeling that if anyone was due an explanation, it was her. Death offered her the bad news smile again.

"Um, there's been a little bit of a mix up," Death said, twiddling his scythe in his hands.

"A mix up!" Helga shouted. "With my life!" Death bit an invisible lip.

"You see, I put your watch on after I first met you so I could, you know, count down the time until I got to see you again-" he offered in a simpering voice.

"How sweet of you," Helga replied sarcastically.

"Yeah, and um, I must have fallen asleep at some point, and er, well, I rolled over on to it you see and..."

"You reset my life?" she said in a scandalised voice. Helga had had a digital watch before, one with big shiny buttons that got pressed whether you wanted them too or not. She stared down at her body.

"In a manner of speaking..." Death said, trying to dodge the bullet but underestimating what a good shot Helga was.

"So when was I supposed to die?" she asked, scowling like she had never scowled before. If she had been corporeal she would have beaten his head in until it was a brand new shape. Death looked as though he wished a shiny Hell vortex would open up and swallow him whole.

"I don't know," he confessed. "Your watch is all wrong now."

"I'm going to kill you," Helga said evenly, curling her hands into fists.

"Well, I'm not technically alive, so that saves you a job," Death offered, although he wasn't entirely surprised when this didn't appease Helga.

"So what now?" Helga asked, getting angrier by the second. "And if you say you don't know, I'm going to bite you." Death thought for a moment.

And then he shrugged.

Helga lunged at him, but he held his scythe out in front of him to defend himself. "I didn't say it!" he protested. Helga stopped, knowing that there was no point in her action anyway. She couldn't touch him.

"So do I just float about here now for the rest of eternity?" she asked glumly. Death regarded her sadly.

"I'll come visit you sometimes," he said with an air of hopelessness.

"You're the last person I want to come see me," she said in a broken voice.

"Probably," Death replied. "But I'm also the only person who can come see you now."

-

Death left Helga's side shortly after, saying he had a lot of business to attend to. Helga was still mad at him, but she knew that her rage could only peter out to nothing, so she let him go and stared down quietly at her body as paramedics rushed the school to see to her. She was going to miss being alive very much. There was so much she hadn't seen or done or had done to her. She had had plans godammit, good ones that involved Arnold and a weekend away. Ones that involved Arnold and her presidency. Ones that involved Arnold and a large tub of chocolate body paint. Ones that involved _Arnold_.

She was very reluctant to leave her body as well. It was hers after all, and she wanted to make sure that it was well seen to. The paramedics brought a stretcher and laid her body gently onto it, and Helga was surprised at what great care they were taking not to jolt her corpse. Carefully they carried her out of the school, exposing her dead flesh to one and all, and they pushed her into the back of an ambulance. Helga had expected them to cover her face with a white sheet like they did in the movies, but surprisingly they didn't. Helga hitched a ride in the back of the ambulance, watching while one of the paramedics stumbled around, looking for supplies that didn't seem to be there.

She wondered what her funeral was going to be like. She felt a horrible pang as she realised that it would probably be the one time in all her life, or death, as it were, that her family showed any real emotion toward her. It struck her as typical that she had to do something as drastic as die just to get their attention. In the back of her mind she thought she could hear the siren of the ambulance going, but carrying a dead body was really no reason to rush. Perhaps they just wanted to get back to the hospital quickly so that they could finish their lunches.

When the doors of the ambulance were thrown wide again, Helga was a little surprised to see that the paramedic looked rather angry. He cast a final furious gaze over the lack of contents of the ambulance once more, before pulling down the trolley with Helga's body on it and dragging it towards the entrance. He was quickly joined by the other paramedic, who began pushing it from the other end. Gently, and not sure how she was doing it, Helga followed them as they urgently pushed her through endless corridors, coming to a stop in a room full of comatose people who were all hooked up to bleeping machines.

She would have scratched her head, but her fingertips went right through her transparent bow.

She watched with interest as doctors and nurses swarmed around her, plugging tubes in here and inserting little needles there. She couldn't help but feel that all of their efforts were a little pointless, what with her already being dead and all, but still, it was nice to know that somebody cared.

She caught snippets of medical jargon as she floated around her still body, but something in her head forced her to notice that _still _probably wasn't the right word. Her chest was clearly rising and falling. Confusion like she had never felt before flooded her system, and in a vain attempt to understand the situation she stared into her face and gibbered for a while. It was as though something else was inside her, controlling her functions and keeping her alive. She was clearly rather out of herself, so who was it? She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.

"Remember me?" said a voice. She spun around, and came face to face with another ghostly figure. It was an elderly man, and Helga knew at once that it was Henry Priestly. But, unlike her, he seemed to be a lot more ghostly and transparent, as though if Helga stopped thinking he was there he would disappear.

"It's you, isn't it?" she exclaimed, pointing at her body. "You're keeping me alive."

"Sort of," Henry replied with a shrug. Helga dashed forward to throw her arms around him, but instead found herself falling not only through him, but also through a pretty young nurse, who shuddered involuntarily. Helga smiled at him.

"Thank you," she said gently. "But why?"

"Well, you were the first person who came to visit me in all my years of being dead," he said sadly. "No one else ever took the time. I wanted to repay you somehow, and just as I was wondering how Death shows up and gives me the prefect opportunity!"

"Hang on a minute," Helga said suspiciously, but still not dropping her smile. "I thought you left when I asked you to?"

"Oh, I did, I did," Henry said quickly. "But I popped back every now and then. You know, just to see how you were doing."

Helga pointed at the bed. "Not too well, apparently," she said sadly. "So how comes you're in there and out here at the same time?"

"When you've been dead as long as I have, you learn how to split your essence. Right now I'm in three different places."

"Oh yeah? What's the third?" she asked, craving an answer like never before.

"You know, when I'm not there I'm not quite sure," Henry said truthfully. "But I know I'm free to come and go as I please."

"So are you a ghost?" Helga asked.

"Don't be stupid," Henry replied. "There's no such thing as ghosts." Helga had decided she was rather sick of hearing that, as she rather felt and looked like a ghost. She sighed and looked down to her body.

"How do I get back in?" she asked. Henry smiled.

"It's easy, just close your eyes and will yourself in there." He followed this statement with a quick demonstration. One second he stood in front of Helga in all his shimmering glory, the next he was gone, but there was a little more colour in Helga's pale cheeks. She grinned, closed her eyes, and with all of the force she could muster, she willed herself back into her body.

Nothing happened.

After a few moments, Henry reappeared. "You're not coming in?" he asked lightly. Helga frowned at him.

"I would, but it's proving to be a little difficult," she explained.

"Try again then," Henry prompted. Helga closed her eyes, and this time she thought of how the only thing she wanted was to be back inside her own head, and nothing more. Still, nothing happened. She sighed and fixed Henry with a cold stare.

"Henry," she began as though she were talking to a simpleton. "Have you ever willed yourself back inside _your own _body?" Henry let out a gentle chuckle.

"Oh Heaven no! It doesn't work," he said with a dumb smile. "You see, I'm dead and once that happens you can't... oh. Sorry." Helga groaned and buried her head in her hands. "I'll go, shall I?" Henry offered, and disappeared without another word. Thankfully Helga's chest continued to rise and fall, so she knew he hadn't gone far.

The cold-warmness that Helga had come to associate with the personification of Death filled the ward, and she spun around to look for the being in question. He appeared before her, looking relieved to see that something was at least keeping her alive down on that hospital bed. "Oh good," he said. "You're here."

"Where else would I be?" she said dryly. Death straightened his robe and cleared his non-existent throat.

"Um, quite. Anyway, I had a word with the Higher Powers and they... well, they weren't pleased."

"Shocker," Helga replied.

"Yes, you see, the thing is, this has never happened before."

"I'll bet it hasn't," Helga said slowly, feeling that she had all the luck.

"Indeed. You see, when I took your soul I caught the balance of the cosmos a little off guard. That's why old Henry here can keep you alive, you see. Because you're not properly dead."

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, your body is soulless right now, certainly, but everything else is in perfect working order."

"Well, why aren't I awake then?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"Because consciousness-"

"- is something your soul makes you do."

"Precisely," Death replied.

"Can I get back in?" she asked.

"Well, I'm working on it, but for now you'll just have to hang around I'm afraid. As long as Henry doesn't leave your body..."

"I'll be fine?"

"You should be."

"And if he does decide to leave?"

Death made a strangled noise.

"Right."

"It's kind of funny really," Death mused, playing with the edge of his scythe.

"It really isn't," Helga replied angrily.

"No, I don't mean that," Death said with a small chuckle. "It's just that with your body still alive and your soul pretty much not that makes you..."

"_Half dead_," they said in unison.

All in all, Helga was feeling as though she was having a very bad day.

-

A/N: When I said three chapters tops... I of course meant four... (whistles innocently) -Sky.


	4. Up

**Chapter 5 - Up**

"Helga, please."

The translucent, once blonde girl waved her spectral hands at her companion. She was in no mood to be lectured about the finer details of afterlife etiquette, especially not by a creature who brought his own cutlery with him wherever he went. She threw the scythe in question a sideways glare and continued her pacing, some eight foot off of the hospital floor.

"Just listen to me for a second, I am an expert in this field, after all..." Death was trying to reason with the girl, and to stop her from stomping around in limbo and waking all of the other spirits, but with only half a heart. Or no heart at all, if we're being literal. He knew that it was pointless and moreover he knew that she had every reason to be mad, but Death was... well, Death. He wasn't used to people shouting back.

"An expert!" Helga shouted, throwing her arms into the air and laughing in the most humourless way she could muster. "You!" Death looked sheepish and ran his hands over the wooden handle of his scythe.

"Everyone makes mistakes," he said pathetically.

"Yes, well they're only human," Helga said in a sing song voice. "What's your excuse?" Death tried to avoid her gaze, something he should have been rather good at, having no eyeballs and everything, and yet he found himself pinned under her ferocious glare.

"You don't have to be so hard on me you know," he said finally out of frustration. "I didn't mean to."

"Well I'm sorry," Helga said, trying to put her hands on her hips and failing miserably. "I'm just not quite over my own accidental death yet, ok?"

"You've shouted at me for hours now, perhaps even days. Don't you think I've suffered enough?"

"No."

"Oh."

Helga continued her pacing and stared down at her lifeless form. By her bed sat the sad figure of Phoebe Hyerdahl, who held on to Helga's limp hand in a fashion that indicated she might never let go. Helga wanted to put her arms around her and tell her that it was alright, that she'd wake up just as soon as she'd figured out how to, but she knew she couldn't. Instead she had been forced to watch as her best friend sobbed quietly, filling the space where her parents should have been.

Not that they hadn't shown up at all, of course. They weren't heartless and Helga was their daughter after all. They had been there within the hour when she had first been brought in. Her mother and father had both sat by her bedside with pale faces and a lack of dialogue, they really had gone all out. They just hadn't been back since then.

Helga had to admit that there was at least one perk to this whole tragic comedy, and that perk had just come wandering through the ward doors to give Phoebe a cup of coffee. As he sat down Helga clutched her hands to her bosom, (which was even less to speak of now that she was 'dead' than it had been when she was alive), and sighed. At last, at long last, she had Arnold right where she wanted him. By her side. If only she were awake to enjoy it.

"Er, Helga?" Death had, somehow, acquired a wheezy texture to his voice and it was everything Helga could do not to reach up and sock him in the face.

"Can't a girl get a few minutes to herself?" she shrieked.

"Sure, of course, but we, er, we were in the middle of a conversation," Death prompted gently.

"We were?" Helga asked, her eyes still fixed on a certain cornflower haired boy.

"Well, you were screaming at me and I was listening," Death said matter-of-factly.

"I see," said Helga, who could just as well have been listening to Dino Spumoni's greatest hits, the amount of attention she was paying.

"I'm just going to go and have another little chat with the Higher Powers," Death said numbly, wondering when his skeletal form, billowing black robes and razor sharp scythe had stopped being something so terrible as to catch everyone's breath.

"Oh, ok then," Helga replied, not turning around. With a shrug, Death disappeared into that dark dimension in which men shall never tread.

-

"I don't understand it Arnold," Phoebe said in a quiet whisper. Before her, her best friend lay in a state on inexplicable unconsciousness. It had been just yesterday when they had been in that lunch room, discussing things as trivial as high school crushes when what they should have been talking about was how much Phoebe actually liked Helga, and how much she valued her as a friend. All of the wasted hours the pair had spent, just chatting idly when there were much more serious issues to be addressed. Phoebe could have kicked herself. (Really, she could have. She was taking an advanced Yoga class).

"So, the doctors still don't know what happened?" Arnold asked sympathetically, placing a hand on Phoebe's shoulder. If he was honest, he was starting to wonder what he was doing there in the first place. Of course, he was upset about Helga, and he would be terribly hurt to hear that her condition had worsened, but he really didn't think he was the right man for this job. Surely Nadine, or Sheena, or maybe even Rhonda would have been better here. The person who needed the attention was Phoebe, and Arnold was finding himself wondering what to say. He was like that with girls, 'like that' being utterly dreadful.

"No," Phoebe said, in a voice that was full of the hurt she had suffered when science had failed her. "She just... collapsed. But they've done so many tests and they can't find anything wrong with her. She just won't wake up." Here Phoebe dissolved into a fresh shower of tears, and Helga found herself reaching down to consol her, only to be bitterly disappointed when her hands passed through he friends shoulders.

All at once she found herself encompassed by a feeling of guilt. Here she was, still swooning over Arnold despite the fact that any relationship between them now would result in some serious jail time for the boy, when it was Phoebe who deserved her attention. She was the one who was really suffering.

So caught up was she in her feeling terrible, that Helga didn't notice that Death had returned. He could see that she was in a place where she needed to be left alone, their discussion not moments before had shown Death that Helga went there quite a lot, but he felt that he had urgent news. In the time honoured tradition of announcing one's nervous presence, he cleared his throat.

Now, when most people clear their throat, there is perhaps just a sense of slight revulsion from the people around them, concerning which germs and been in that throat and which ones were now subsequently air born. The problem is that Death is not most people. When the Grim Reaper clears His throat, there is a sound like a gun going off which reverberates around whichever walls surround the being in question. It is not a matter of what has been ejected from His throat but who... and then things really start to get ugly.

Helga leapt about four foot in the air, (bringing her height to a grand total of twelve feet, some of which went through to the ward above her), adding to it a delightful scream and then, much to Death's surprise, she flickered out of being for just a second.

When she returned, Death finally managed to realise the true meaning of 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'. Or scared, in this case.

"What the hell do you think you're playing at!" she screamed, advancing on him in a way that Death knew he shouldn't be frightened of. She was non-corporeal, after all, but that didn't stop his knees knocking together in a fine little tattoo.

"Sorry, I, um, didn't want to disturb you," he said quickly.

"Well you failed there bucko," she replied, clutching a hand to her chest. It was then that she noticed the expression on his face. "What's the matter with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Rather 'not seen one' would be more accurate, I think," Death replied feebly. Helga knitted her eyebrows together at him.

"In English, bones," she said menacingly.

"Well, it's just then when I frightened you just then, you seemed to flash out of existence." Helga swallowed thickly. She had to admit that for the briefest moment back then, she had felt _somewhere else_. And she had seen something too, she just couldn't put her finger on what it was. She felt she was owed an explanation, but these aren't commonly found on the end of the word;

"Huh?" Death shrugged his shoulders at her, and Helga tried to replay the whole incident back in her head.

"I remember hearing the gun shot..." she mused quietly. Death put a hand to where his throat should have been.

"Yes, sorry about that. It's been a little dry recently." Helga ignored him and went on.

"I remember thinking 'holy crap, a gun!' and wondering how on earth I'd survive if I got shot at. I'd sort of forgotten about my current state..."

"Well, you do when something like that does... or in this case, doesn't, happen."

"...and I thought... bullet proof vests!" Death fixed her with a quizzical stare.

"Now you've lost me," he said.

"Oh, there are these things that stop bullets and-"

"No, I know what a bullet proof vest is," Death said, with an air of someone who does nothing but breathe, eat and sleep bullet proof vests. "I just meant, what the hell are _you_ talking about?"

"Well, if I was shot at, I'd want to be wearing one, and the next thing I know I'm down the bullet proof vest aisle of some gun shop in Texas."

"I see..." said Death, thinking he needed a holiday.

"So what I really needed, to prevent my world coming to an end, was a bullet proof vest, and the next thing I know I'm surrounded by them!" Death's eye sockets opened up to the size of plates.

"Helga, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked, beaming.

"Yeah!" Helga said with a grin. "It's so weird! Anyway, what did the Higher Powers say?" Death smacked a bony hand to his forehead and sighed.

"No, you stupid girl," Death said, not caring that he was walking on wafer thin ice. "What I meant was, if I did something so scary that what you'd need to survive it was to be back in your own body..." The little cogs in Helga's head whirled around rapidly as she considered this. Finally, she reached the conclusion she was looking for and it was as though a little light bulb went on above her head that only she and Death could see.

"But what can you do that scared me enough to be back in my own body?" Death, surprisingly, displayed a rather smug expression and polished his nails on the front of his robe.

"You forget that I am Death," he said importantly. "Everything I do is scary."

"Really..?" Helga said disbelievingly. Death looked up and dropped his cocky expression.

"Yes, really," he insisted.

"Well, go on then," Helga said maddeningly. Death straightened up and raised his hands to his hood. Slowly, and with every sense of ceremony, he drew back his hood. Underneath there was a nest of the most terrifying things Helga had ever seen. Maggots scrambled over one another trying to reach the top of the pile, blood seeped out through the cracks in His skull and of course, just below his ear socket, there was a large, fat rat with red glowing eyes. Helga screamed and popped out of the air in front of Death. Smiling, he pulled his hood back over his head and looked down at Helga's body.

"Well, she did better than the barber," he said with a sniff.

-

Half an hour later, the spectral, and slightly trembling figure of Helga G. Pataki reappeared in front of Death.

"Well?" he asked. "What happened?" Helga opened her mouth, but no sound came out. "Where did you go?" he said.

"Fiji," she finally managed to reply.

"Fiji?"

"Fiji. In a small market village, the one place in the world that is furthest from this hospital." Helga looked as though she would never close her eyes again.

"Of course," Death said thoughtfully. "If you'd have gone back into your own body, you still would have only been about eight feet from me..." Helga nodded and squeaked at the same time. "Hmm... I'll have to think about this..." Death said, and he disappeared once more. Helga just stood where she was, with her mouth hanging open like a fish.

-

A few hours later, when Helga had finally managed to calm down, she found herself once again watching Arnold and Phoebe. She sensed a longing in her that she had never felt before. She missed other people, ones who's skeletons you couldn't see and who thought that there was more to life than death. She sighed, and also missed being able to rest her chin in her hands.

"She's really not so bad you know," Phoebe was saying, looking down at Helga's peaceful face. "Once you get to know her, she can be quite sweet."

"I know," Arnold said, who remembered the odd occasions when Helga hadn't been peppering his head with spit balls.

"She's just very complex you see," Phoebe continued. "She has so much going on and so much to hide..." Very quickly, the petite girl brought her hand to her mouth and tried to look as though she hadn't said anything. Helga curled a translucent fist at her.

"Hide?" Arnold repeated.

"Everyone has secrets Arnold," Phoebe said, tip-toeing around the issue. "Of course, I can't tell you..."

"Oh, of course not," Arnold said, and Helga breathed a sigh of relief. "It's just hard to imagine someone like Helga been so deep. I mean, I know she has another level somewhere, but surely nothing too bad."

"You don't know that half of it," Phoebe continued in a distracted voice. Helga wanted to rush up to the girl and shake her until she stopped talking.

"I guess I don't," Arnold admitted.

"And now you never will!" Phoebe said with a huge racking sob. She slumped forward on the bed, burying her head in her arms. Arnold patted her gingerly on the back.

"Come on now Phoebe don't say that," he urged gently.

"It's so unfair!" Phoebe said, her head snapping up suddenly. "She never got the chance to go to the prom! Or graduate! She never had a pistachio and banana sundae! She never got the chance to tell..." Phoebe trailed off again, just as Helga pushed her ghostly nose an inch from the girl's.

"To tell..." Arnold prompted, intrigued.

"She never had the chance to tell you..."

Helga shook her head rapidly from side to side. "No Phoebe, don't do it! Please! As your friend and possible murderer I'm asking you not to talk anymore!"

"To tell me what?"

"Helga, she... she lo-"

Helga's screams could be heard echoing through the Underworld for years to come. Every single Arnold based fear that Helga had ever had rushed to the surface and paraded about for all to see. She screwed up her eyes, and waited for the final blow. When it didn't come, she opened them again.

"Helga?" Helga squinted around, unsure to where she had taken herself this time. "Oh my God Helga? Are you awake?"

"I hope not," she mumbled groggily. From beside her a high pitched happy scream emanated, piercing through her brain and into her socks. She brought a hand to her forehead, and was surprised to see a tube sticking out of it.

"Nurse!" someone cried, before dashing from the room. Helga looked around, and when recognition dawned on her she smiled. She had seen this room before, but this time it was from a whole new angle.

_Henry, she thought. You can go now._

And he did.

-

The hospital had insisted on keeping Helga in for at least a week after she had woken up, but being unable to find anything wrong with her, and with getting sick of Bob complaining about how much it was going to cost him, they finally let her go. She was glad to be home, and more than that she was glad she had adverted total disaster from spilling from Phoebe's lips. She had tried to explain to Phoebe, or at least, to have a go at her, but she couldn't find a way to explain that she had heard what Phoebe was saying without involving Death, ghosts and Texas. Eventually, she had just let it go and gotten on with her life.

That was until her eighteenth birthday, when a familiar figure appeared in her room.

"Oh no," she said. "Not you."

"It's alright," Death assured her. "I'm not here on business." Helga breathed a sigh of relief and looked up from her English homework.

"So what is it?" she asked. She would have been more hostile, but the plain fact was that despite the fact that he wasn't as clever as he seemed, and despite the fact that he had once accidentally killed her, Helga couldn't help liking Death. He was a nice guy.

"I come bearing good news!" he said cheerfully.

"Really? You? Get out!" Death looked rejected, and shuffled toward her window. "It's an expression," she said dispairingly. Death looked embarrassed for just a second.

"Oh," he said. "I knew that."

"So what's up bones?" she said. "I haven't seen you since you scared the bejesus out of me." Death grinned and rolled up his sleeve.

"I got you a new watch," he said happily. Helga smiled, a smile that quickly turned to a frown.

"So why are you wearing it now? Don't you remember what happened last time?"

"It won't happen again," Death said proudly. "This watch doesn't have a reset button. Doesn't actually have any buttons at all, not even one of those ones that light the face up all blue."

"Excellent," Helga said, and the smile returned.

"Also, I got you a new cause of death," he said, offering it out like a child offers his nursery school paintings to his mother.

"Aww," Helga said in fake affection. "And there I was thinking I wouldn't get anything more than bath salts."

"I thought considering I told you what you were going to die of, you might be pissed that it wasn't going to be a surprise."

"And who'd like that?"

"So I had a word with the Higher Powers and they changed it."

"So now I don't know what I will die of, but I know it won't be heart failure..."

"Or will it?" Death replied slyly, tapping the side of his invisible nose. Helga laughed and picked up her English homework.

"Here, read this," she said. "I wrote a story about us and our time together for my English assignment." Death took it with an approving nod and glanced over it.

"What is it, tragedy?" he asked. Helga looked down to her pink fluffy slippers.

"Comedy, actually," she replied.

-THE END-

**A/N: Quite.**


End file.
